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-- © GodSpeak International 2003 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.net> --

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES
Author: Teresa Seputis ts@godspeak.net http://www.godspeak.net
Editor: Elvi Glass

A Prophet's Eye-View Of Bible History"

Lesson 18
Summing It All Up

By Teresa Seputis

Quick Summary

There is so much history and details in the Old Testament that it can be hard to get a grasp on all of it. So we have taken a "bird's-eye view" of Old Testament history, which "leaves out" a lot of interesting and important details to focus on the overall picture. We explored the Old Testament from God's perspective of interacting with and ruling His creation. We broke the history down into five broad categories to give us a framework to "hold" the details. Those categories were:

  1. The Beginnings - This covered the creation and God's interactions with man from the time where they were sinless and innocent, through the fall (Adam and Eve sinned), and then details the spiritual decline of mankind until they became so wicked and ungodly that God destroyed most of them through the flood and started over with Noah and his family.

  2. New Beginnings - this covered the second go-around between man and His creation. It starts with the flood and how God used Noah and his three sons to re-populate the earth. As the earth became populated, God began to yearn for a special people that would look to Him as their God and they would be His people, set apart for Him. He developed that people through Abraham, then Isaac and Jacob. Jacob had 12 sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel. God even made provision for them, to keep them alive and safe during a severe world-wide famine by sending Joseph ahead of them to become established in Egypt and to store up grain and supplies during the seven years of prosperity that proceeded the flood.

  3. First Government - A large family went to Egypt to escape the famine. Over 400 years, they grew into a massive people group and God had to introduce a more formal government system. God set up a theocracy, where the leaders wore two hats: spiritual leaders and political and military leaders. The first leader was Moses, followed by Joshua and various judges, then by prophets and priests. Samuel was the last of these prophet/priests to govern Israel. As he got older, his sons began to assume some governmental responsibilities, and they were not very good at it -- they were self-serving and ungodly. So the people cried out to Samuel and God to give them a king. God honored their request and split the leadership role into two separate jobs. The spiritual side fell to the prophets and priests. The political/military side fell to the king. The first two kings were appointed directly by God: Saul and David. Saul turned out to be self-serving and disobedient to God. So God replaced him with a man after His own heart -- David.

  4. Man's Declining Government -- While the first two kings were appointed by God, the remaining kings were appointed by natural succession -- e.g., they were related to the previous king, usually his oldest son. The first of these kings was Solomon, who started well but eventually fell into spiritual decay and idolatry. After he died, the kingdom split into two nations. Judah was ruled by Solomon's descendents and that was where the temple was. They remained godly for a long time before falling into spiritual decay and idolatry. Israel, on the other hand, fell into spiritual decay immediately, and for political reasons. Since the temple of God was in Judah (their political enemy) they encouraged the people to worship other gods and set up temples to these other gods in Israel. After some time, God brought judgment on Israel and they were taken into captivity by the Assyrians. Judah was not defeated by the Assyrians because God was still with them. However, they later fell into spiritual decay and were defeated by the Babylonians and taken into captivity. After 70 years of captivity, God began to restore Jerusalem through people like Nehemiah and Ezra, and eventually many of the Jews returned from captivity to re-establish the nation of Israel.

  5. Prophets as God's spokesmen -- The job of leadership had been split into two separate jobs. Category four (Man's Declining Government) describes the history of the kings. Category five (the prophets) examines and describes the role of the spiritual leaders, the prophets. We have Samuel, who remained as the spiritual leader during the reign of the first king (Saul). There was Elijah, who worked with some of the kings of Israel (after the kingdom split). There was Isaiah, who worked with some of Judah's kings, including king Hezekiah. There was Jeremiah, who was at the end of Judah's life-cycle, warning the king and people alike of God's coming judgment. Then there was Ezekiel, who served as a prophet while Israel was in captivity.

God Likes To Remind Us Of What He Has Done

We have just spent the last 17 lessons looking at Old testament history. During this process, you may have been asking yourself, "Why is this history important to me as a prophetic person?"

The answer is simple: history is very important to God, so it must also be important to anyone who desires to speak for Him. God tends to remind people of what He has done for them. Over and over again, God identifies Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, e.g., the God of His chosen people.

When God commissioned Moses at the burning bush, God identified Himself by His relationship with His people. His first words to Moses, after "take off your sandals" were, "I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob" (Ex 3:6). Moses asked God for His name, so that he could tell the Jews who sent him. To this God replied, "I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' Say to the Israelites, 'The Lord, the God of your fathers -- the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob -- has sent me to you.' This is My name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation..." (Ex 3:14-15).

God's whole sense of identity is wrapped up in His relationship with His people, and in what He has done for them. Because of this, He frequently reminds His people of history and how He has shown His power and His faithfulness to His people over and over again.

After Israel had settled in the promised land, God began to identify Himself as the "Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt." God also identified Himself to His people as the God who split the Red Sea, and delivered them from the Egyptian army that was chasing them. Even the Psalms, or worship songs, are full of the History of what God did for His people. Here are a few examples:

Psalm 106:9
He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up; he led them through the depths as through a desert.

Psalm 106:22
... miracles in the land of Ham and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.

Psalm 136:13
to Him who divided the Red Sea asunder, His love endures forever.

Psalm 136:15
but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea; His love endures forever.

When Jesus walked the earth, history was important to Him. For instance, one time He was asked a "trick question" about the resurrection from Sadducees who hoped to discredit Him in the eyes of the people. First Jesus answered the question, then He said, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God... have you not read what God said to you, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living" (Matt 20:29-32).

And Jesus often quoted historical information when He prophesied. For instance, when He prophesied about his death and resurrection, He threw in some history. He said, in Matthew 12:40, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

Prophecy Today

The bible tells us that God does not change, He is the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb 13:1). God liked to remind His people of history when He spoke to them in the Old Testament. Jesus liked to remind us of history when He lived on the earth as a man. Since God doesn't change, and since He liked to remind people of history when He spoke to them, it follows that He will like to remind us of history when He prophesies to people.

Let me share a few examples of where God has used history in recent words:

Even today, God loves to remind us of His faithfulness and of His power and ability to care for us. He likes to use history in some of His prophetic words to accomplish this.

As I said in our first lesson, God will often give us a message to deliver without giving us a word-for-word dictation. When He does that, He likes to be able to instruct us "Tell them the story of how I empowered David against Goliath" or "Tell them the story of how I was faithful to follow through on My promise to Abraham even though I made him wait a long time before I fulfilled it" or "Tell them the story of ..." It is much easier to tell them these stories when we are familiar with them. The better we know our Old Testament history, the greater vocabulary we give God to speak through us with.

In addition to all of that, God loves to speak to us personally and encourage us by bringing scripture to our memory. There are many times where I have sought the Lord for insight or direction on something, and He responded by bringing an old testament story to my memory. Then I would go look that story up in the bible and read it. And often, as I read it, God would speak to me from it and give me the answers I had been seeking Him for.

God has given us a very rich history and spiritual inheritance. It is very helpful for each of us to become familiar with it, where or not we move in the prophetic.


-- © GodSpeak International 2003 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.net> --

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